That PDF shows nothing about full-time vs part-time downgrading. It only shows employment numbers were not reduced.
In fact by reducing everyone to 29-hours, they could in theory claim to hire MORE people, while carefully saying nothing about them making a living wage or the state paying for their insurance vs the employer.
That PDF is actually depressing when you look at the graphs, uninsurance was only reduced by a little over a third for all that change in policy.
> That PDF shows nothing about full-time vs part-time downgrading.
From the text:
"To capture potential changes in hours worked in response to health reform, we also examined trends in full-time and part-time work over time."
> uninsurance was only reduced by a little over a third for all that change in policy.
this reduction occurred on top of a trend of great increases in uninsurance nationwide at the same time:
> Between 2008 and 2010, Massachusetts, the four comparison states, and the
rest of the nation all experienced sharp drops in employer-sponsored coverage, reflecting the impacts of the recession. However, it would appear that health reform mitigated the effects of the recession in Massachusetts
on employer-sponsored coverage to some extent, as the level of employer- sponsored coverage in Massachusetts, which was below that of the four comparison states prior to health reform, moved above the level in those states after health reform and has remained at a higher level.
According to your document, the reason is that MA's employer penalty is about 7-10x smaller ($295) than the Obamacare employer penalty (either $2000 or $3000).
The document refers to this disparity but hypothesizes the opposite conclusion based on the fact that fewer firms would be impacted:
> Although there are differences in the details, with penalties for firms that fail to comply higher under the ACA than in Massachusetts but fewer firms likely to be affected nationally, the broad similarities between the ACA and Massachusetts’ reform suggest that we can expect to see patterns in the response by employers under the ACA similar to those observed under health reform in Massachusetts.
